


The Last to Know

by Girl_chama



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: BAMF, Common Sense, Friendship, Movie Spoilers, SHIELD, Secrets, little debbie, the thing that didn't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Girl_chama/pseuds/Girl_chama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis, assistant to one Phil Coulson, is the last to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last to Know

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Norsekink prompt originally done here- http://norsekink.livejournal.com/8195.html?thread=17467907#t17467907
> 
> Now de-anoned and properly edited for your reading pleasure. Welcome new readers and old :)
> 
> Spoilers for a character death, if you haven't seen Avengers yet.

Her undergraduate career ends with a cum laude graduation and no time to even search for jobs before a fancy piece of letterhead from the Strategic Homeland Intelligence, Enforcement, and Logistics Division appears at her mom’s place in Des Moines.  It’s an interesting discussion with her parental unit, but in the end her mom is supremely proud, flattered, grateful- and hey!  Wasn’t that off the wall internship a good idea after all?  She remains none the wiser about the taser, myeh-myeh, the destruction of Isabel’s, or the true nature of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Darcy doesn’t even know the true nature of S.H.I.E.L.D. when she meets Maria Hill, the ball-breaking Director of East Coast Operations.  Hill conducts her interview, more than a little intimidating from start to finish, but Darcy holds onto the same blasé attitude that has served her previous twenty-three years well.  Truthfully, she was not wild about the idea of working for S.H.I.E.L.D. at all.  But her mom was thrilled and it was a job.  At the very least she could not be blamed for not trying. 

The pop culture references fail to compute, but perhaps blasé is what they are looking for.  She nails the interview.  Or at least that’s what she thinks since she’s gainfully employed and moving to New York.

Living in the east at least helps keep her pale.  She spends more time in doors than out, staying on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s schedule from the moment she meets her new boss, none other than the impeccably dressed Agent Phil Coulson.  He smiles graciously, like she never stood behind Jane and Thor threatening his person, and immediately hands over two weeks’ worth of work.  All classified.

It’s unnerving as hell, and she is terrified that at the end of her first day they are going to shoot her.  Clean up all the loose ends from New Mexico.  This is some weird, sadistic, drawn out method for isolating her from the people who know her first, right?  She’s in New York City.  How easy is it to dump a body in a city with millions of people?  A girl from Iowa can be easily forgotten, and no one will think of any suspicious activity or be as paranoid as she is _right now_ because it’s all too tragic and horribly believable.

“You all right?” Coulson asks, popping his head into her rat hole during her lunch hour.

“Yup, good,” she says with a nervous nod of her head.  “Aren’t you supposed to be chasing down Rainbow Bridges and stuff?”

He smiles his small, tolerant smile, making her wonder what thoughts never get voiced and says only, “Glad you’re settling in well.”

-

 “When was the last time you heard of an uncompetitive internship?”  she asks, and he does not answer immediately. 

She’s been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for nearly two months, and they are just now getting to the story of how she ended up in New Mexico.  It is, after all, the event that put her onto this life path.  It’s OK, though, because they stay busy.  Frighteningly busy, given their line of work.

Her boss is an excellent listener.  Like, better than Oprah.  He doesn’t force sincerity and is _always_ insightful.  It’s one of the things she’s come to appreciate about him in her first year here. “You actually bought that bit from Erik about me being the only one to apply?  The man’s humor is as dry as the Sahara and he _will_ pull a Donald Blake, M.D. for fun, ya know?   The truth is that I was going through a bad break up and wanted to get out of Iowa for a while.”

“So you applied to a program in New Mexico.”  It’s not a question.   He doesn’t ask those as much as he _pretends_ to ask them.  He’s usually already got the answers.  But does he know that she…

“Pulled out a five-thousand word essay on why a poly-sci undergrad should be given a chance to work with astrophysicists.  The night before the application was due… Talked about building bridges.”

“Ah, I see what you did there.”

And he does.  He’s as insightful as he is forgettable, and it’s a little weird, but also comforting to be in the presence of a man who _gets_ it.  She grins at him and continues flipping through her phone as he steps away.

“Oh hey!” she calls, prompting him to hesitate for a moment longer.  “Just so you know, pest control is going to be sweeping our floor in three weeks, but I went ahead and sent out a mass email to do double-checks on security for a few days prior just in case.  So the guys from tech are going to be taking over your office.  Sorry!”  She does not sound sorry in the least.

“In case bug men try to break into S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“What, you never saw Men in Black?”

He ignores the quip, as is his sometimes tendency, “How do you even have authorization to send those?”

She ignores his question, as is sometimes her tendency, “Hey did you know that in the past decade Portland has had a bad infestation with stink bugs?  I mean, we had ‘em in Iowa when I was little and they were SO gross.  They really do stink if you squish ‘em.”  The information is given casually but received with a considering look.  Coulson does not do anything so cliché as tap his nose, simply leaves their daily afternoon debriefing, and Darcy spends more time than she should researching cheap first class airfare prices from the City to Portland.

-

The first time she accompanies him on a mission out of their thirty-third floor suite of an unnamed building it is both awesome and infuriating.  Awesome, because she now knows the level of trust S.H.I.E.L.D. has placed in her from day one, handing her classified information with the unspoken understanding that she can be undone, but never acting on the threat.  She recognizes this as an expansion of that trust.  It’s infuriating because they end up at Tony Stark’s newest pet project (isn’t he supposed to be West Coast?  SoCal or something?) in Midtown and the guy is a total douche.

She knows about his gig as Iron Man, and hell yeah she did a research project on Stark Industries three years ago as a sophomore because they were definitely one of the corporations causing terrorist proliferation, in her book.  She’s grown up a little since then, maybe it’s S.H.I.E.L.D.’s doing, or maybe she’s a little more jaded.  She doesn’t blame the man for the ongoing genocide of tribal peoples in the Middle East the way she once did, but he’s still the Earl of Douchery.

When they arrive, he looks at them, both Coulson and Darcy herself, spending an extra second on her.  It is not leering, the prolonged glance, but he has seen her, and she knows it.  He does not greet her or go out of his way to make nice.  He is not intimidated by this government organization at all, a law to himself.

His attaché is really nice, though.  Pepper Potts speaks with Coulson in gracious, non-condescending tones while Darcy waits by the door.  She overrides her boss’s arrogance with grace and poise.  She even smiles, genuinely, at him before they exchange paperwork, and then it’s time to go.

The exchange has taken less than five minutes, and Phil Coulson smiles all the way to the elevator before his face relaxes, and Darcy says, “Yes, yes.  I see,” in sagacious tones.

“Sarcasm is probably unnecessary,” her boss says without looking at her. 

“Then why did I tag along on this field trip?”

“Mr. Stark is one of our premier consultants.  We work with him more regularly than even he is aware.  It’s good for him to see the different faces of our agents so that it-“

“Humanizes you?” she interjected, chuckling.

“If you want to use those words.”

“Well, I still think he’s an ass hat.”

“Sometimes, yes.”

At his suggestion, they grab coffee for the rest of the office on their way back for afternoon work.

-

She’s the best false nose Coulson has ever had.  Beyond his own, that is.  No one in the city ever looks twice at a man of his stature and bearing.  He knows how to be perfectly inconspicuous.  Add to that an assistant bossing around her own Siri while tagging after him at a speed just below break neck and she ensures he remains forgettable.  Besides, she refuses to do the nothing-but-black wardrobe thing.  How is that low-key?

On domestic issues, she plays apathetic good cop to a T.  She wonders if he knows how many of her accidental I-was-looking-for-the-bathroom intrusions on his debriefings are not so accidental.  Genius or idiocy?  If he hasn’t figured it out yet, she’s not going to tell him.

The man is very well put together, that’s true, but that does not mean he’s perfect.  Once you get past the suit, the vapid smile, and the killer Taebo moves (yeah right,) he’s got flaws.

It takes three tries before he takes the snack bags of granola and apples that she packs for his flights to the anonymous cellist instead of grabbing a dozen Little Debbie powdered donuts en route.

“Knowing JFK, they’ve probably been sitting there for years, anyway.”  She laughs at her own joke, because it’s _funny_ , but is surprised to hear him chuckling as well.  This is progress.  For real.

His dry cleaning bill is outrageous.  Never mind the odd stains that come on the jackets after his out of office assignments.  Everything has to be pressed because when his jacket lands on the floor after he takes it off, it stays there until it wrinkles.  Plus, the man is unable to organize for shit.  He’s good at delegating verbally, controlling a situation with a supernatural calm that none of the Asgardians can touch, for all their demigod status, but she knows if he had to stick to his own schedule he’d be dead in the water, and that makes her a little less comfortable than she’ll admit to anyone.  He can talk his way out of most situations without making anyone feel bad, has personally saved Pepper Potts’ life, and by extension Tony Stark’s entire company, and greater still, somehow never gets a speeding ticket, even when driving ninety miles an hour, regardless of situation or geography. 

But no calendar skills.

It’s part of the reason he has her.

-

It is eight months since she has been hired by a faceless organization, the only Letters belonging to the USA that never, ever, ever get mentioned in the news.  She has been living in the city seven months and three weeks, and despite the stress of her job, the weight that S.H.I.E.L.D. collectively holds on its shoulders, it is the first time she has succumbed to illness.  Of course, it could just be flu season, but she’d like to think she’s better than that.

I mean, hello, she’s run over a god with her Scooby van, tazed the same guy for getting craycray, got picked up by S.H.I.E.L.D. and has done a pretty good job of keeping the world-keepers rolling.

Perks of working for the group are an eased conscience, banging pay checks, and decently spacious dwellings.  Nothing so horrendous as she had feared when first moving to the City. There’s a wall separating her two rooms, at least.

Downsides to working for the group are the complete lack of social life and therefore the utter lack of friends she has to whimper at when the first round of the flu has passed.  She is sitting in bed, feebly streaming Netflix on her tablet, when a knock at her door registers from the next room over.  She winces in confusion at the sound because no one knows where she lives in the City except her mom, who is definitely in Iowa.  There is another knock, followed by the muffled calling of her name.

Oh God, it could be that stupid guy from a few floors down who Facebook stalked her until he learned her last name and does not understand NO.  Plus she’s really not in the mood to talk to anyone, anyway, stewing in her own germs and in three-days-used clothing- why don’t they just go awaaaaaay?

The next thing she knows, the door is opening, and she’s slinking down into her bed, because she was pretty out of it when she came home but she’s sure she locked the door- she always locks the door- and now someone is coming to kill her and she has no idea who it is but she’s _too tired_ to even get out of bed and run away.

When Coulson steps into her doorway with a brown bag, the combination of fear, relief, and exhaustion puts her in tears.

“Are you all right?” he asks, looking concerned in the way he normally does, controlled and muted, most expressive in the eyes.

“What the shit?” she wails from her bed and then starts crying in earnest.  “I thought you were some serial killer about to pop in and up his count!”

“You didn’t answer the door,” her boss offers still standing in the door way, a thumb over his shoulder gesturing to said door.

 “I’m sick,” she says, wondering if he isn’t an alien.  “And… why are you here?”  She manages enough strength to inject some incredulity into the words as he pulls her vanity seat closer to the bed and makes himself comfortable.  “You’re supposed to be in Portland for two more days.”

“Got called back early,” he says as he unloads the brown bag, and she frowns for him because every time he comes back from Oregon he looks a little happier, a little less tight around the eyes and mouth.  He’s still unloading the bag, when she mutters sympathy to him.  Normally she might be interested in its contents, but her stomach still feels shaky and it’s unlikely that she could keep down more than-

Saltines and Sprite emerge from the bag.

“Wheaton told me you’d been out for a few days and since you don’t have any emergency contacts in state…”

“You know I don’t have any emergency contacts in this time zone,” she whines, somewhat impatiently, more to cover how touched she is by the fact that he is here, with the only sustenance she has wanted since this began, and he has even brought a cup to pour the fizzy drink into.  That he is unwrapping plain saltine crackers and handing her two, and that no one has even attempted to take care of her like this since she was fourteen years old.

“I know,” he says, all saintly patience, and passes her the drink so she can wash down the first cracker.

“How was Portland?” she asks after the first sip that tastes ungodly sweet and feels like heaven going down her throat.  It settles into her stomach contentedly, and Coulson smiles at her with his Mona Lisa smile.  “Good, then.  Glad to hear it.”  He grins.  “How’s the office?”

“The espresso machine’s broken,” he says with some consternation, and she tries to shake her head.

“What the hell?  Didn’t you guys backflush?”  He shrugs and hands her a third cracker, topping off her pop, and she wants to ask if he has children.  It seems appropriate, given the situation and how good he is at this.  He’s old enough to be her dad.  But he’s not her dad.  He’s not the kind of man who would leave her mother at twenty-three years old, jobless, with a baby, after two years of marriage.  Or maybe he is, but he’s certainly never given her that vibe.

“Hey, Phil,” she says, earning a curious, soft glance from him.  She’s never called him by his first name.  “Thanks.”

He nods, all secret smile, and she introduces him to the Animaniacs.

-

It is one year since she graduated from college when she is at home visiting her mom, allowing herself to be gushed over for the nice presents from New York and the job and her mother’s ideas of success.  Darcy doesn’t mind.  She is doing good work, supporting the people who keep the planet safe.  It feels good, even if she can’t tell her mom what she does exactly.  But at least she doesn’t have to lie.  She just says it’s top clearance, and that’s enough for Elaine.

She’s three days into her trip, frankly bored out of her mind, when the call comes in.  Her vacation has coincided with another trip that many in her office are making to somewhere in the Southwest that she is not even cleared to know about, much less the details.  That’s fine by her, too; she’s good enough to read Coulson now that if it were about Thor or Jane or any of the others, she’d know, even if he couldn’t tell her.  But it’s not, and she knows it’s safer not knowing.

Except it’s not.

They’ve been compromised.  In a bad way.

The information is encrypted and she doesn’t remember enough of her codes to get all of it out, but she remembers meeting Clint Barton once, and her heart aches when she realizes Erik is gone too.  Thor’s brother has done something Bad.

It seems so…  _normal_ when she returns, and days go by without contact from the higher ups, her boss included.  It makes her guts twist and ache.  Jane contacts her a week into lock down, via snail mail of all things.  She’s been moved to a secure facility somewhere in Oceania, still doing research and unable to say what, but knowing that she has been moved, and knowing what she knows, Darcy figures Loki’s into something big.

She’s a little afraid.  Because she was definitely part of their triad when he did whatever he did to Thor, and if Erik’s gone and Jane was in danger, then maybe she is as well, but she’s too good to stay paralyzed.  There’s work to be done now.  Besides, she’s had some training in firearms (ha, as if that could stop an Asgardian) thanks to her boss’s foresight and that might be able to stop Barton.  If he’s looking the other way.

-

Two weeks after the initial call, the Chitauri attack is… well, scary as hell, if she’s honest with herself.  She has definitely _not_ been prepared for this level of fan-hitting shit, no matter what way she’s deluded herself into thinking she’s some kind of bad ass.  She works for S.H.I.E.L.D., making sneaky airline appointments for her boss so he can visit his secret cellist lover.  She files data and tags what she has come to recognize as inconsistent reports in their feeds.

She doesn’t kill aliens, or protect civilians.  That’s what Romanov and Barton do.  Did. One of them does it, and one of them, for all she knows, is a traitor.  Do people untraitor?  And would Maria Hill, or her superiors, take him back if he did?  Protocol for compromised agents is another thing she is not quite clear on.  But instinct tells her shoot to kill.

She’s not a fighter, no way in hell, but she is clever, and she knows how to escape sticky situations.  If she has to run someone over with a hijacked Scooby van, then so be it.

It’s how she finds herself sweeping other offices in the evac process of their building.  They aren’t the only ones in the building, after all, and real estate brokers aren’t even half as prepared as she is, which is both bolstering and scary.

A group of them are preparing to head toward the front entrance when a crashing green troll comes barreling across the floor, brushing aside desks and cubicle walls like butterflies before he crashes through the window and into one of the alien invaders.  She stares for a moment, not sure which sight is worse, and then takes a deep breath and thinks of the unflappable Phil Coulson.

“EVERYONE, FOLLOW ME!” she bellows, and surprisingly, they do.

-

Hours later, perhaps even a day later, Midtown is a shambles.  It hasn’t looked this bad since more than ten years prior.  9/11 had been terrifying, even states away, and she had only been a child, then.  People are terrified and in shock.

Even the impeccable Stark Industries tower looks like it took a lot of damage.  A ton, actually.  The only letter left is the original A from Stark.  A for asshole.  That’s kind of fitting.

But the fighting is over.  Some of the alien bodies still litter the streets, giant disgusting things with warped faces sharp teeth, grappling with the sky in their gaping maws.  She strolls forward, worrying a bad ankle with each step, in discomfort, but not real pain.  That’s probably shock, too.

She did well, helping some people get to safety, clearing them away from most of the fighting.  She’s even seen Captain America once.  She’s not supposed to know that he’s one of theirs, though how anyone could see the stars and stripes and not think he was on their side is stupid.  The green troll is apparently in their number, as well, though if she ever sees him again it’s damn well going to be from a distance.  The dude looks like he ingested pure green adrenaline and ham before taking off into the sunset.  No way was he human.  If he was a he.

She was looking forward to things getting back to normal around the office.  They had purged all of the hardware as instructed, and it would take a few days to get things back to normal.  Weeks, even, while the city around them recuperated as well.

But she was looking forward to seeing her boss again.  He had a way of controlling a situation.

-

She’s a week deep into work when Director Fury arrives, Romanov and Barton in his wake.  So things are copasetic on that front again.  Huh.  They are transferring operations to this hub because it’s one of the few offices that hasn’t been compromised for hardware or agents.  You’re welcome.  Fury is walking into Coulson’s office in a way that’s sending an oddly prescient feeling into her gut when she sees two more figures walking through the door.

Tall, big men.  One is Steve Rogers and the other is-

“Thor!” she calls, genuinely happy to see him, because he did save her life that time, and does not seem to have held any grudges about being at the business end of her taser.  Or being hit by her van.  Has he even discovered Facebook?

“My lady Darcy!” he greets her, just as enthusiastically, embracing her without worry or self-consciousness.  It’s the least she can do to return it.  Yep, he’s still cut.

“So I see you’ve been busy, right?” she quips because other people are watching and hell yeah she knows him.  “Good work saving the city, bee-tee-dubs.”  He laughs and she’s glad that even if he does not understand her mannerisms (or does he?) he does not stumble over them as he once did.

 “These are good tidings, indeed, to meet you again, Darcy of Lewis,” he says and then leans forward to whisper.  “And what of Jane?”

“Hidden,” she says with some disappointment.  She would like to see Jane herself, one of these days soon.  Nothing like the possible end of the world to make you want to reaffirm life and friendship.  It must be worse for him, though, since they were kind of in love, or in serious like, the last time they saw each other.  A year removed and still asking about Jane sounds promising, actually.

“Hey, who was that green troll guy?” she asks, and he opens his mouth to speak, but before he can another voice from across the room cuts him off.

“Miss Lewis, could you come here?” the Director is asking, and she turns away from Shiny McLarge Huge to join her boss because he asked it like a question but when do S.H.I.E.L.D.’s higher ups ever really ask questions?  They _pretend_ to ask questions, and she has no plans to rock the boat anytime soon by delaying.  “It’s time to bring you up to speed,” he says as she shuffles past the door he is holding open.

The door closes and he stands and Barton and Romanov are standing so she stands, too, even though there are perfectly sittable chairs.  Through the windows next to his door she can see Thor and Rogers talking to one another, except Thor is looking at her and then Fury starts talking.  He doesn’t hold anything back, and forget Manhattan, the world is falling apart.

-

“Knew you well the Son of Coul?”  It’s Thor asking because she’s still sitting in what was Coulson’s office.   She can’t run away and just have some breathing room.  They won’t let even let her leave in the mental state she’s in, too fragile, too ready to expose their stupid secrets.

“No,” she says, and she’s not being snarky, it’s the truth.  They didn’t know each other well.  Maybe they knew some important things, but they weren’t BFFs and didn’t spend time braiding each other’s hair.  OK, maybe it’s a little snarky.  Thor places a hand on her shoulder that she simultaneously wants to throw off and grab.

“Pray then, what troubles you?”

It’s not Coulson.  Right?  It’s _everything_.  Her city has fallen apart and come closer than ever to being wiped off the map.  Thanks, Fury, for that little bomb.  Yeah, she’s full of puns.  She’s been kept in the dark, her friends are scattered and the only one- the ONLY one who didn’t come back from everything was Coulson.  Barton, the traitor, and Erik, who was also a traitor but who is kind of her friend she’s glad is alive so he’s forgiven, both came back alive.  What does this _mean_?

“Lots of stuff,” she grinds out, kind of wanting to be left alone to think about things, and kind of wanting to hit something.  She’s still honest, though, and getting angrier by the minute.  Why does he bother asking?  What’s going to be done about it now?  Nothing.  Nothing is going to change.  Thor’s going to leave to go back to Asgard, fucking S.H.I.E.L.D. will keep on keeping her in the dark like always, and Coulson will still be dead.

“I would counsel you to stay your anger, Darcy,” and she looks up at the demigod in surprise because how the hell did he know- oh.  His wrist is white under her hold, and she let’s go quickly, fingers spasming with nothing to hold onto.  She inhales deeply, thinking that Thor isn’t injured because he’s Thor and when did he lose the metal sleeves, anyway? 

Then she exhales a shaky breath as Fury says, “He’s right.  Anger’s not going to help us get through this.  Right now, we have to rebuild- we’re too vulnerable.”

And her fingers stop shaking because she’s staring at the sleek, one-eyed Director, and she’s suddenly on her feet, feeling more invigorated than since this whole whatever began.  “Fuck you, Fury!”  she says and stares at him like he’s got two heads and still can’t see for shit.  Her gripped fingers don’t connect because, after all, Thor is by her side and he’s been fighting long enough to know an explosion when he sees one.  Fury doesn’t even flinch as the demigod holds her back, just stares at her, as if he’s been waiting for this, and doesn’t that just piss her off even further.  “You’re a fucking animal!  You don’t even care, don’t even think about the rest of the people that might care!  But he cared and he was worth more than your good eye so fuck you, you f-f- Let GO of me!”

And she’s glad that Thor’s arms are so big, because when he refuses to let her go and instead pulls her to him and hugs her, the rest of the world goes away and she can scream away the injustice of it in private.

-

She’s given a sabbatical, which in theory sounds awesome because even after a year of early mornings she still likes to sleep in and kind of lazing the day away sometimes, but in actuality is awful because the memories are still there and the anger is still there and they didn’t even give him a funeral.  What the hell is she supposed to do on paid leave in a city with no friends and no one caring about who’s gone?

She’s sad, but usually the sadness takes the form of rage, and she doesn’t like being around people for a while.  Thor seems to think its normal, and tries to comfort her with stories that she doesn’t quite relate to, and for once she knows what it’s like to not get the reference.  She hears from Jane finally, but it’s a week into her forced leave and she’s mad at her, too.  No, she doesn’t want to talk to her now.  She wanted to talk to her after Manhattan was attacked, after Phil died.  Now is a little late for a cold Skype date that is not going to solve anything, anyway.  She’s mad at Fury, too, but fuck if he cares about it.  He’ll still have that expression that stonewalls her, all Churchill with his, “Keep calm and carry on,” attitude and yeah, she’s a polysci grad.  Fuck you, anyway, Fury, because Churchill was way more bad ass than you, warts and all.

Mostly, though, she’s mad at Loki, and that anger is the worst, because he’s light years away in some cold prison in Asgard that’s not cold enough.  Or hot enough when she’s really raging.  Fury spared some of the details, but she was in the office long enough to know that the fucking coward stabbed Phil in the back.  In the back, that stupid-

Her dry sob cuts through the silence in the room before she can bite it down.  She’s so tired of crying because it seems like it’s all she’s doing anymore, and part of her is mad at herself for crying in the first place at all.  Why is crying over a man she barely knew?

Sure, he taught her how to properly hold a gun and got her into that banging krav maga class.  And after some prodding he had finally taken her up on the ‘offers’ of health food air travel snacks.  And he had instituted coffee Wednesday because he still used words like “hump day” and believed that a magic shot of espresso could be the thing to get you over the hump.  Not that he had explained his reasoning in so many words, but she was good at reading him.  He was also the only Wheel in S.H.I.E.L.D. who didn’t make her feel like she was a few rounds short of a clip with just a look.  Yeah, maybe he had thought it at some point, but probably not.  She _had_ gotten pretty good at reading him.

But the fact remains that she barely knew him.  Not really.  Except that he had taken care of her just as easily and readily as he took care of the other people in his department who had been there a lot longer, that he actually listened to her and took her suggestions.  And she had stopped thinking of him as “boss” the moment that he had pulled out the soda and crackers and had elevated him right then and there to “friend.”

So she goes ahead and keeps crying for days more because she knew Phil Coulson, she knows S.H.I.E.L.D., and she knows that none of them are going to shed a tear.

-

The first thing she does when she gets back to work some weeks later is apologize to Fury- er, Director Fury. 

She’s not apologizing because she’s sorry.  Not at all.  Not telling her that her favorite boss in the world (perhaps including Jane) was a big sociopathic mistake, and his lack of emotion over the whole thing only affirms her opinion of him.  But Phil Coulson was classy classy (hello PSO cellist?  And shit, will someone tell _her_ what’s happened or will she just think that he’s dropped off the planet?  Are cellists as manic as Darcy was/is?) and she does not want his legacy in her to be how she threw a tantrum when S.H.I.E.L.D. frankly _was_ at a vulnerable time in their existence.

He doesn’t make a big deal out of it, and she thinks that maybe he forgot “the incident” altogether, except he’s probably not used to being called on his shit, and he finally nods and she goes back to her cubicle.  There’s data stuff to do and whatever other shit that’s piled up since she’s been away.

The world won’t save itself.

-

New York is being put back together.  The Avengers are being big helps on that end, for as much destruction as they caused, they know how to hold shit together.  Darcy knows someone who could do just as well, but… well.  She tries not to think of him most days, but the pain in her heart is softening.

Apparently word has gotten around that not only did she try to take on the Director, but also womaned up and apologized, too.  Something about it reeks of street cred because her coworkers aren’t treating her like the kid who threw a tantrum, but the woman who got her shit together.  That helps more than anything.

The day that Clint Barton spends two extra minutes next to her cubicle talking about her stolen iPod (and how the hell did he know about that?  She’s still never gotten it back, but she’s upgraded to an iPhone, anyway, and doesn’t miss it much,) she thinks things might have even gone back to normal-weird.  He’s not bad looking, she thinks as he struts away.  His eyes find her shameless ones as he steps out of the door, a smirk on his face.

Not bad at all.

She ends up working late into the evening, several nights in a row because despite Clint Barton’s cute smile (and ass) he is slow to ask her out- something about missions rebuilding the city and keeping S.H.I.E.L.D.’s enemies at bay.   It’s her third night in the office in as many days and instead of paying the obscene cab fare back to her apartment, she decides to bunk in for the night.  There are sleeping quarters that she’s rarely made use of but knows are pretty comfortable.

She’s disposed of her Chinese takeout cartons and is making her way back to her desk when she sees the light in her boss’s office on.  It’s weird to think that her new superior is coming in this late in the evening- it’s probably Hill or even Fury.  There are other employees scattered around the suite, and it’s not unheard of for the Director or his direct underling to appear in the office without warning.  No one has replaced Phil’s shoes yet, and they probably won’t for a while.

Still, she swings back to her cubicle, her stomach greased with noodles and wontons, and gets back to work.  After the initial attack there was a brief down period where communication was staunched, but in the months that followed it was like everything sped and then tripled to make up for lost time.   Except now she was in on the cross-referencing data, too.  It was time-consuming, thought –consuming.

Careful feet swept down the hallway towards her and she lifted her eyes just in time to see a ghost past by in the form of her dead boss.  He paused at the entrance to her cubicle and opened his mouth.

“You’re supposed to be at home now.”

There’s a strange look on his face that goes beyond curiosity at her presence.  And she sure is hell knows there is a strange look on her face.  She feels like all of the valves of her heart have opened at once, and her arms feel really wobbly.  Her legs she can’t really feel, but that’s probably because she’s sitting down.

“You-“

He says nothing, as her mouth continues to grasp for words that her brain won’t provide.

“I am,” he says calmly, and nods, Mona Lisa smile once more.  Because of the two of them, he was always the better at intuition.

“But they told me-“

“Security reasons.  Sorry, you’re not cleared that high yet.”

“Assholes!” she says, with a fierce slam of her hand against the keyboard.  Her brain has started functioning again.  The keys crunch in a pleasant mimicry of what she wishes she could do to a certain one-eyed, jackbooted thug.

“Sometimes,” he says, still smiling.  Darcy turns to him fully, still feeling incredibly shaky about it all.  Not Puento Antiguo post-Thor shaky, but, ‘Hey this is not a normal fantasy, this is really happening’ shaky.  She can see now, his left arm in a careful sling, his jacket draped over his shoulders instead of actually coating his arms.  He looks thinner, too.

Whatever happened to him, it actually happened, and all of the trauma that entailed.  Darcy stands and, as is not really at all her tendency, invades his personal space.  She is mindful of the arm and his coat, and the fact that he’s pretty much the same height as her which makes it easier to slip her arms around him.

It’s barely a hug at all, because she’s afraid of how he’s injured and she doesn’t want to screw him up further.  But he doesn’t get awkward or embarrass her or anything.  He simply pats her back with his good arm.  She wants to say how relieved she is that he’s OK, how PISSED she is that his, ya know, LIFE STATUS, was kept secret, but mostly she’s just glad that he’s here.  In the office.

He’s still smiling that smile and says, “I heard about an employee altercation in the office while I was away.”

“I didn’t start it,” she says defensively, finally pulling away from him.  “But I came close to finishing it!” she adds with a snap, as if she’s just said something clever and needs to point it out to him.  Damn, it feels good.  She feels GREAT.  His lips quirk, and he nods.

“You should head home for the night.  These reports will be here in the morning.”

“Good idea,” she says, and ignores all of the take-out rolling in her belly.  “Let’s go get some Little Debbie.”

And they do.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm of the opinion that Coulson's not dead. Fury's a big fat liar who does what he feels he needs to do.


End file.
